One minute. That’s all it took. One surreal, slightly awkward minute standing face-to-face with a shiny metal sphere in a glass-fronted shop on Union Square, San Francisco. I stepped in curious. I walked out a “Verified Human.”
I had met the Orb.
What’s an Orb?
The Orb isn’t a sci-fi prop. It’s real, it’s shiny and it stares into your soul. Well, your eyes. It’s the centerpiece of World’s ambitious and controversial quest to verify every human on Earth.
The visit began with a smile from a young guide who looked like he would fit right in trying to advice at an Apple store. I was asked to stand in front of an Orb, keep still and let it scan my iris. I obliged. I’m still not sure why. A few seconds later, the World App on my phone pinged. “You are now a Verified Human.”
No confetti, no parade. Just relief.
For a second there, I had begun to wonder.
So what is this all about? What did I really just do? And why are millions around the world queuing up to do the same?
What is World?
World is the brainchild of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and co-founders Alex Blania and Max Novendstern. It launched publicly in 2023 after years of build-up. The company behind it, Tools for Humanity, raised a hefty war chest from investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Reid Hoffman.
At its core, World is trying to answer a deceptively simple question: how do you prove you’re human in an age of AI?
The answer, apparently, involves your eyeballs.
The Orb is World’s signature device. It scans your iris and creates a unique digital code, called your World ID. This code is used to ensure no one can register twice. Think of it as a global passport for your humanity. No names, no addresses, no other data stored. Just proof that you are one of a kind. Your mom was right all along!
Why Crypto?
After I got back to my apartment, I noticed that I could claim some Worldcoin. The cryptocurrency that accompanies this human verification tool. I clicked claim. It gave me $44 worth of the cryptocurrency, but it has to be claimed periodically over a 12-month window. There’s always a catch!
The crypto side of World kind of confuses me. Where does it fit into this human verification tool? Apparently, the cryptocurrency Worldcoin is to incentivize people to join up to World and therefore make the verification network more used and more trusted. It is also used to raise funds for the company behind World, Tools for Humanity. And it will be used as a way to make payments through the app and to access services built on this new infrastructure.
That’s the pitch. Clean, efficient, futuristic.
Or is it?
Giving Your Biometric Data To A Crypto Company Seems Fine, Doesn’t It?
As with all things that promise to change the world, World is raising eyebrows as fast as it scans irises.
Let’s start with privacy. Critics argue that collecting biometric data at scale is a privacy nightmare dressed up as innovation. Even though World says it deletes your iris image after creating the code (unless you opt in to data storage), not everyone’s buying it. The idea of a startup backed by VCs storing millions of biometric scans has triggered investigations in Germany, France, the UK and Kenya.
Then there’s the ethics. World has rolled out rapidly in parts of Africa, South America and Asia. Reports have emerged of people being offered tokens with little understanding of what they were giving up. The risk of exploiting vulnerable populations in exchange for sensitive data is real.
The company insists it’s acting transparently, ethically and with privacy at its core. It’s published its tech specs, engaged external audits and committed to decentralizing control over time.
Still, the questions persist.
Is World a humanitarian moonshot or a surveillance scheme wrapped in shiny hardware? Is it the beginning of AI-era digital equality or just the next step in data extraction economics?
Even the idea of “proof of personhood” is being debated. Do we really need to scan our eyes to prove we’re real? Couldn’t we just click a CAPTCHA? Do we risk building a world where access to online life requires biometric ID?
And yet.
World is tapping into a real and growing concern. As AI becomes more capable of impersonating humans, the need to differentiate bots from people grows urgent. In that context, the Orb begins to make sense.
It’s not about surveillance. It’s about survival. Or so the argument goes.
Altman has spoken publicly about a future where AI generates so much wealth that we need new ways to distribute it. World, he suggests, could form the infrastructure for AI-funded universal basic income. If machines do the work, the money they make could be shared among verified humans.
That idea sounds grand.
But building that future on the back of biometric scans and crypto wallets is where people get nervous.
As I left the World Flagship Space, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had just participated in something important. Or maybe just something strange. Maybe both.
The Orb didn’t feel dangerous. It felt clinical, cool. Like a self-checkout for your identity.
Still, I kept checking the World App on my phone. Just to be sure.
There it was: “Verified Human.”
The Orb had spoken.
The Implications of World’s Success
If World succeeds, it could change how we vote, how we get paid, how we prove who we are online. If it fails, it will serve as a cautionary tale about the cost of trust in the age of data.
In the world of education, a secure global identity could help prevent AI cheating in exams or coursework. Imagine a future where students verify their humanness before submitting work. Is this the answer to restoring trust in student work by educators? On the other, it raises huge ethical questions. Would students need to scan their eyes to access learning? Could digital identity become a gatekeeper? Biometric verification could support integrity and access, but only if deployed with transparency, consent and clear benefit. If handled poorly, it risks turning classrooms into checkpoints.
Either way, the Orb is watching.
And people are lining up to be seen.